Well I cannot say I was shocked regarding Nexon America's actions since their formation in late 2006. Nexon A. shares the utilitarian and economical minimalist attitude of many (not all) American companies, basically tieing back to the principle of least exertion trap that our economy has fallen into for a long time coming.
Millions and millions of dollars have poured into Nexon and in the lead on the entire online gaming industry. With reports of GMS having 3 million subscribers, while MapleSEA has roughly only one-sixth of the subscribers, or even still one-third of the subscribers moderately high projection inclusive, (gamestudy.org/eblog/?p=32) it can be assesed that even with regional discrepancies, GMS has an income revenue at least equal to, to much greater than that of MSEA. With that said, the excuse that Nexon of America is "too poor" to update is virtually false because even if it were true, the headquarters at Korea, which has made hunderds of millions in USDs over the past three years, would help NoA through subsidies.
So if it most likely wasn't a lack of funds, then why are the updates coming in to GMS slower and/or less grandly than in other versions? The answer is simple: milk us like theres no tomorrow. Use updates at only crucial times when consumer tolerance wears down in order to obtain a maximum amount of monetary profit, rather than stack updates like other versions to further statisfy the customer. Use minimal effort to produce the maximum amount of profit.
Think of Nexon and NoA's efforts being visualized as a man who undernourishes his child, yet feeds him enough to keep him alive, as opposed to a man who feeds his child much more food and keeps him alive and content. The former profits more from using less food, however, the former also does the child a terrible service as well. The community starves for the new content, but we are still kept alive by minimal content implications.
And the reason why the higher levels have waited the longest for a sufficient content update is BECAUSE they are the most loyal customers to Nexon, so they can starve the longest without new content and still be kept tied to the game. They may use small, effortless gimmicks like a few cash shop items per week to give players an incentive not "to pass" onto another game.
Like many people said, this is Nexon's game, not ours. It should be ours; Nexon should listen to the customer regarding what they want, and while this is the manifest intention of Nexon, it certainly isn't their latent one.